Exhaustion was a physical weight, heavier than the fur-lined cloak Sir Damien had wrapped around me. I rode before him in a stupor, my body humming with the ghost of the power that had so recently blazed through it. My senses were raw—the morning light too sharp, the creak of leather too loud, and the smell of horse and pine too vivid. Beneath it all thrummed a deep, hollow ache, the price of a miracle.
The Northern knights rode in a tense, protective silence. They had seen the aftermath—the golden flowers, the awestruck crowd, their comrade lifting me onto his horse like a fragile relic. They did not ask questions. Their loyalty was to Kaelen, and he had ordered them to find me. What they had found defied their soldier's understanding, so they defaulted to duty: protect the asset, complete the mission.
We left the main road, cutting into the rugged foothills via game trails known only to the locals and the Frost Guard. This was no longer imperial territory; this was the contested land, the buffer before the true North. The air grew colder, sharper.
Near midday, we reached a sheltered clearing where a small, fortified waystation stood, flying the frost-wolf banner. It was a staging post for Northern patrols. As we dismounted, the door to the main lodge flew open.
Kaelen stood framed in the doorway.
He was in full travel gear, dust on his boots, as if he had ridden hard and arrived only moments before. His silver-gray eyes found me instantly, scanning from my ash-smudged face to the borrowed cloak to the way I swayed on my feet. His expression was unreadable, a mask of granite, but I saw the tension in the line of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes.
He strode forward, dismissing Damien and the others with a curt nod. They melted away to see to the horses, leaving us alone in the yard.
For a long moment, he just looked at me. The thread between us, which had been a faint, shimmering connection, now felt like a taut cable of forged steel, vibrating with unspoken energy.
"The reports reached me before my scouts did," he said, his voice a low rasp. "Rumors of light at the southern checkpoint. Healing. Flowers from dead wood." He took another step, close enough that I could see the flecks of darker gray in his eyes and the faint, fresh line of exhaustion on his brow. "They're calling it a miracle. They're calling you a saint."
There was no accusation in his tone. No reverence either. It was a statement of tactical fact, as if assessing a new feature on a battlefield map.
"It was an accident," I whispered, the words scraping my throat. "I couldn't hold it back."
"I know." The simplicity of his belief undid me. He didn't question how or why. He had seen the truth in my eyes in the archives and felt it in his dreams. "This is an accident that has rewritten the game." Cassian will hear within hours. The Archbishop will have confirmation. You are no longer a political pawn or a heresy suspect. You are a divine instrument. That makes you infinitely more valuable and infinitely more dangerous."
He didn't ask if I was alright. He saw I wasn't. He saw the tremor in my hands, the way my gaze couldn't quite focus. "Come inside. You need food. Rest."
He turned, expecting me to follow. I took one step, and my knees buckled.
He moved faster than thought. His arm was around my waist, catching me before I hit the ground, hauling me upright against him. The contact was electric. Through the layers of wool and leather, I felt the solid, unyielding strength of him and the heat of his body. The holy power within me, dormant and depleted, gave a feeble, responding flutter, like an ember touched by a breeze.
I gasped, trying to pull away. "I'm sorry, I—"
"Be still," he ordered, his voice gruff. He didn't let go. Instead, he shifted, bending slightly, and in one smooth motion, lifted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing.
I was too stunned, too utterly drained, to protest. My head lolled against his shoulder. I could feel the steady, strong beat of his heart against my side, a counter-rhythm to my own ragged pulse. He smelled of cold air, leather, and the faint, clean scent of pine soap.
He carried me into the waystation, past a wide-eyed young squire, and into a small, spartan room with a narrow bed and a blazing hearth. He set me down on the bed with surprising gentleness, then knelt to pull off my mud-caked boots.
"Kaelen, you don't have to—" I began, mortified.
"Quiet." He didn't look up, his focus on the task. "You expended enough energy to light a city. Your body is empty. You will eat the broth Elara is heating, you will sleep, and you will not argue." He set the boots aside and stood, looking down at me. The granite mask had slipped. In his eyes, I saw the storm from his dreams—the protectiveness, the frustration, and the bone-deep recognition that still confused him. "The world will descend on us soon enough. You need to be ready. We need to be ready."
He turned to leave, to give me space.
"Kaelen." The name left my lips before I could stop it.
He paused at the door.
"Thank you." The words were inadequate for the debt—for his intervention at the academy, for his knights, for this shelter, for not flinching from the truth of what I was.
He glanced back, his profile sharp in the firelight. "Don't thank me. I didn't do it for you." He met my eyes. "I did it for the woman in my dreams who kept dying for a world that didn't deserve her. This time, I'm making sure she lives."
He closed the door softly behind him.
I sat in the sudden quiet, his words echoing in the hollow spaces he had named. For the woman in my dreams. He was protecting Selene. He didn't know he was also protecting Rosalind. The two were now irrevocably fused, not just in my soul, but in his mission.
Elara entered shortly after with a bowl of hearty venison broth and a chunk of black bread. Her usual exuberance was tempered into a solemn, sisterly concern. She didn't speak of miracles or saints. She fussed over the temperature of the broth, smoothed the blanket, and then sat on the edge of the bed while I ate.
"He's been like a caged wolf since he got your message," she said softly, watching the fire. "Pacing. Planning. When the flash on the horizon happened this morning… he knew. He just said, 'That's her,' and saddled his horse." She looked at me. "He remembers more than he admits. Feelings. Impressions. There is a profound sense of devastating loss. You're not just a mystery to him, Rosalind. You're a promise he made to a ghost."
I finished the broth, the warmth spreading through my frozen core. "What happens now?"
"Now?" Elara took the empty bowl. "Now the wolf has what he's been hunting. He won't let the southern hunters take you. But the game has changed. You're not a secret anymore. You're a banner. And banners get attacked." She squeezed my hand. "Sleep. The arguing with him comes later."
She left, and I lay back on the rough pillow. The pendant was cool against my skin, the power within me a dormant sun, temporarily sated. Outside, I could hear the low murmur of male voices—Kaelen and Damien, planning, assessing threats.
I was safe. In this remote lodge, I was safe, guarded by the most formidable warrior in the empire, for this moment.
But Kaelen was right. The world would descend. Cassian would want to control the narrative of the "new Saint." The Archbishop would want to claim me for the Church. The nobility would see me as a tool or a threat.
And beneath it all, the true enemy—Erebus, the architect of the cycle—now had his successor in the open, just as he had likely planned.
I had survived the manifestation. Now I had to survive its consequences. And the only shield I had was a scarred, pragmatic Duke who fought for a ghost and who was, with every passing moment, becoming the anchor my new, terrifying reality demanded.
As sleep finally pulled me under, my last thought was not of empires or enemies, but of the steady, solid beat of a heart against my side and the unwavering gray eyes that had seen my light and had not looked away.